STAR WARS SHENANIGANS

Since the earliest news of The Force Awakens started hitting the world wide web, I've been having some fun creating a handful of cheeky images. I have nothing but the deepest respect for everyone who has worked to create any of the episodes in the George Lucas space opera, so none of my new or manipulated images are meant for anything other than having fun and enjoying Star Wars.
 
Lets start with BB-8 making his debut appearance at the Star Wars Celebration event hosted by J.J Abrams and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.

This is how I think BB-8 really works. 

See my blog on BB-8 here 

NASA Mars photos finding lumps of rocks that look like monster crabs prompted me to make this image. 

Jawas exploiting poor droids all over the galaxy

See my short blog on NASA Monster Crabs here

When The Force Awakens trailers came out, I had a great time with those. Yeah the first one is a bit crude but I'm a nice guy... honest.

I made this image before seeing The Force Awakens and finding out that Finn works in sanitation. There's a lot of Stormtroopers on the StarKiller base, and that's a whole lot of poop to deal with. I think this is why Finn really wanted out of the First Order.

It's a dirty job

This next subject is really close to my heart. Who will be the next Han Solo. I made this header image for my blog on why I believe the very fine actor Anthony Ingruber should be the first to step in Mr Ford's space boots.

The battle to be the new Han Solo

Read my blog on Solo Wars here

On a much more sombre note, I created this next image in response to the tragic Paris shooting at Charlie Hebdo. This is what actually prompted me to start blogging again. 

A pencil can be more power than any gun

Read my Je Suis Charlie blog here 

Returning to more Star Wars silliness, I thought that Kylo Ren was a pretty cool, dark character, and he looked like he could fit right into a slasher horror movie. So I took an existing illustration of Kylo Ren and gave him a Scream makeover. The fantastic original illustration is not mine, I just slapped a Scream mask on him.

In space, no one can hear you Scream

And I'll end with just some plain old shenanigans.

Snoke In A Poke. And why not

Je Suis Paul

My blog has been long overdue for an update. I will carry on using my blog to post updates about Gameboyz, but I’ll also be blogging about other projects I’m working on and various subjects.

Like everybody, I was stunned and horrified by the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris. I wanted to create a piece of humorous art in show of support of the importance of freedom of speech, and how we can’t let barbaric acts like these silence us. But what is freedom of speech really? Is it more than simply voicing our opinions, or does it have to go as far as to say that I’m ok with someone being verbally abusive to me or what I believe in? I have seen many people hiding behind their right to freedom of speech as a reason to be appalling abusive to people, and usually from the safety of being behind a keyboard. Of course it is not ok for someone to be abusive to you, and certainly it is not acceptable to encourage abuse towards you and commit hate crime.  

But can we justify any level of this freedom with comedy? Several times have I witnessed an almost immediate change in emotion when an article which at first was believed to be serious, was in fact revealed to be satire. It’s easy to say there should be no barriers when things seem to be in your favour and not being directed at you, but I believe there is an element of the hypocrite in us all. Even with humour we all have a point when we say enough is enough when things do not seem fair to us. There is a saying that if you don’t wish to offend anyone, then you should spend your life doing and saying nothing, but even doing and saying nothing is bound to rub somebody up the wrong way.

Freedom of speech should not be a coward’s excuse to be abusive to another person, and I certainly believe we should be able to laugh at anything, but we have a long way to go to truly accept and understand our fellow human beings. And if one day we finally do, maybe we can truly be at peace.